Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like, if we banned the practice of white-labelling products or running a division as a DBA. I think customers (and frankly, legislators asleep at the wheel) would be stunned to discover, for example, that we only have 3-4 major beer companies; or that Pepsi owns everything from Gatorade to Lay's to Doritos to Quaker Oatmeal. There's far less competition than there appears.
I'd be happy if there were a law that every product's package or advertising must prominently display the highest level parent company. I think it would align with your suggestion of banning white labels and DBA.
I remember hearing of a story of one foods company that decided put their company name prominently on all their grocery brands, and people got mad because they saw how little choice they actually had. The company then redid their packaging, emphasizing the brand name, and shrinking the company name down to fine print, and the people were happy. I can not verify this story, tried searching for it, but found nothing other than that we have even more consolidation now than ever before.
